


Good Night-Mare

by savvysp



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Baku Sans, Hallucinations, Nightmare isn't a bad guy, Nightmare!Sans - Freeform, Nightmares, gender neutral reader, he's just trying to munch on some bad dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvysp/pseuds/savvysp
Summary: You just wanted a good night's rest, is that too much to ask?
Relationships: Sans (Undertale) & Reader
Comments: 15
Kudos: 56





	Good Night-Mare

**Author's Note:**

> I see weird stuff when I'm half asleep, and recently found out my brother does as well! So (nearly) everything in this story is something one of us had experienced. Hope you enjoy, and sorry if I scare anyone!
> 
> And thanks to my amazing Beta AmyScarlet for going over this when I should be working on something else >.>

  
Not again…Please, if there’s a God, make it stop.

Nearly every night it’s the same thing, just as you’re hitting the brink of exhaustion, right before you _finally_ fall asleep, you begin to see… _things_. Things that aren’t really there, you know they aren’t, but that doesn’t make them any less terrifying.

It started out simple, only occurring once every few years. The first time it happened you’d been a child of about 9 or 10, lying in bed about to fall into sweet sleepy bliss when you sensed… _something_ in your room. Opening your eyes, you saw a small praying mantis sitting on your chest, staring at you. Confused by the intrusion you turned on your bedside lamp only to see that the mantis had disappeared!

A few years after that it had been an owl sitting on the edge of your bed. Alarmed by the large bird, you quickly threw your blanket over it and turned the light on, only to see that it too had disappeared. Next you’d see small insects such as beetles, floating on what appeared to be balls of dirt or hay, you could never quite tell. These were easy to recognize as sleep-addled visions though; _beetles don’t float,_ you’d tell yourself before rolling over and falling asleep.

But then the spiders came; those were harder to discern from reality and you really, _really_ hated spiders. When you opened your eyes, you would sometimes see a web floating above your head, looking for all the world as if it were about to fall on your face! Terrified by the idea (and fueled by an exhausted brain) you’d quickly roll out of bed onto the floor and scramble to the overhead light switch, panic seeping into your bones as you searched your bed for any signs of the spider webs. Other nights there would be large spiders alternating between crawling along your walls or simply floating above you.

The spiders became your most frequent vision, making you long for the days when a mantis would sit on your chest watching you sleep. With spiders haunting you, it became impossible for you to sleep peacefully. You’d tried sleeping on the couch, but you’d wake up with spiders the size of footballs crawling down the wall heading straight for you. Sleeping in the car proved useless as well, small spiders would float by using webs as parachutes, causing you to roll out of the car unceremoniously onto the hard pavement in a panic.

They came so often you started seeing them even after falling asleep, only those spiders didn’t disappear when you turned the lights on. Those spiders would flood rooms, pouring from every crack and crevice like a plague, only to crawl up your legs, your arms, they’d be in your nose, your mouth, suffocating you until you awoke in a cold sweat, crying for help that never came.

Your co-workers suggested therapy, sleeping medication, and other various remedies that they believed would help you, but you couldn’t do it. Your mother had overdosed on prescription sleeping pills and it had caused a paranoia that wouldn’t go away. 

When the shadows began to visit, your fear nearly beat your paranoia. Insects and owls were disconcerting, spiders were terrifying, but the shadows… they seemed to crawl straight from the bowels of hell and into your life. You could tell they were people, perhaps ghosts that had wandered into your room by mistake and stuck around because you acknowledged them, you aren’t certain, but you knew this couldn’t continue. 

They would never touch you, merely observe from a distance. Sometimes they would approach from the foot of the bed only to disappear once they made contact, and other times they would huddle in a corner, rocking back and forth or stare blankly at the walls. Regardless of their actions, their presence would send unpleasant goosebumps across your body and fear would set in, causing your heart to race and your body to be frozen in place, afraid that movement would cause them to attack.

Those nights were the worst, and one day as you sat at your work desk, sipping on your third cup of coffee, you tried searching the internet for any explanation for these hallucinations. Immediately, your results told you that it could be a form of Hypnagogic Hallucinations and suggested you seek professional help if a lifestyle change didn’t ease the visions. But you didn’t want someone to just brush you off with a prescription or worse, commit you under the impression you’ve gone crazy.

And crazy is certainly how you felt when… _he_ appeared; a shadow unlike any other. This one was humanoid in shape and unlike the other shadows, you could see. Every. Last. Detail. He was at least a head taller than you with four long tentacles that seemed to stretch from his back and covered in some sort of dripping, black _goop_ that dissipated into thin air. But underneath all that goop he looked to be nothing more than a skeleton, one eyesocket covered with the dripping substance and the other filled with a glowing blue light.

You had never seen anything so terrifying before, the very sight of this creature paralyzing you in fear and sending your heart racing like a caged animal set for slaughter. You couldn’t reach for the light, you couldn’t scream, you could only stare and pray that he’d leave, that he wouldn’t return like the others.

But you weren’t that lucky… upon his first visit he noticed you watching him, and unlike the other shadows, he didn’t disappear when he approached you. He stood beside you and watched with what could only be described as curiosity, staring down at your still form with eyes locked on yours for hours. Eventually, he turned away and stepped through a large, swirling black vortex that appeared on your wall. Yet another difference between him and the other shadows, they would simply evaporate like clouds, he seemed to need a portal.

The next time he appeared, he spoke to you. His voice was deep, deeper than any voice you’d ever heard, but not harsh. _This must be the devil come to tempt me with a honeyed voice,_ you thought, but all he said was, “sleep now.” Before brushing a skeletal hand across your forehead, an action that somehow sent you into a sleep so deep, you had no dreams.

That had been the best sleep you’d had in months, and it made you curious about this new visitor. He touched you and you felt it, something that none of the other visions had done. Could this really be a hallucination if you felt the cold, slick, boney hand brush across your face? Are hallucinations that vivid? Or is this something else entirely? You worried what this creature could do to you as you slept, but if he meant any sort of ill will, then why did you sleep so soundly after he touched you?

Fueled by a dangerous curiosity, you waited for him to appear again, fearful still of the other creatures that haunted you but determined to learn more about the tentacled skeleton. It took days but finally, just before sleep claimed you, the sensation of someone watching you sent shivers up your spine and you opened your eyes to see him standing beside your bed again.

“W-who are you?” You whispered hoarsely. The figure cocked his skull to the side in question, a small drop of black goop dripping from his cheekbone onto your carpet.

“they call me nightmare.” He finally answers flatly in his deep voice.

“W-why Nightmare?” It certainly describes him well enough, but you’re hoping the name comes from his appearance alone, and not his actions.

“because i devour the nightmares.” He states, as if it should have been obvious to you. Still wary of this dark creature, you take a moment to look him over again. His stance seems rather relaxed, he has his hands shoved into the pockets of the hoodie he’s wearing, and for the first time, you notice he’s wearing a pair of fuzzy slippers coated in the same black goo that covers the rest of his being. His tentacles are drifting lazily behind him, oddly pointed in the direction of the visiting shadow in your closet.

Are… are the shadows the nightmares? When he touched you before, did you sleep peacefully because he devoured the ones haunting your room?

“those aren’t nightmares.” He says, following your line of sight. “they’re just visitors. they’ve been alone for a long time and when someone sees them, they find it comforting. they mean you no harm, they’re just lonely.”

“Lonely?” You repeat. It’s absurd to think such horrifying creatures could be lonely! …. Isn’t it? “What about the spiders?”

“just creatures from the shadow dimension. they’re used to nesting wherever they please, most beings take no notice of them so again, they mean you no harm.”

“What do you mean ‘shadow dimension?’” You ask, concerned. It doesn’t sound like a pleasant place and with spiders as large as the ones you’ve seen; you had a hard time believing they meant you no harm.

“it’s where we live, a threshold between this world and the next. many wander that plane for centuries, some for days, and others go their whole existence never coming in contact with that place. you see glimpses of their world before falling asleep, and you’ve let it consume you. it’s bleeding into your dreams, twisting itself into something more than truth, causing your nightmares. that’s why i’m here. to help.”

To help? This tentacled skeleton covered in black goop is here to… to help? “What are you?”

To your surprise, Nightmare bends over and places his hand against your forehead once more. Smiling, he says, “just a friend.”

The next morning you awoke to find a glossy, pitch black sleep mask placed on your bedside table. The idea that everything you saw last night must have really happened should have been terrifying, but it left you with a warm feeling in your chest, something you hadn’t felt in a long time, _hope_.

With the mask to prevent you from seeing the creatures that have plagued you for so long, you were finally able to sleep peacefully and when you dreamed, there was only one Nightmare now. 


End file.
